


We Hide In the Performance Zone

by avoiceisgraceandgreed



Category: Outmatched (TV 2020)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, And I like it but no reason to continue I suppose, And it's staying unfinished, And unbetad, Author projecting? More likely than you'd think!, Because I was high, Chemistry, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, I Was High When I Wrote This, I fell asleep before I finished it, I think all of the science is bullshit, Is this the first work posted for this fandom? maybe, No beta we die like dehydrated worms, Perfectionism, Sibling Rivalry, Teenage stress, Touch-Starved, sibling dynamics, they're just kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22763302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avoiceisgraceandgreed/pseuds/avoiceisgraceandgreed
Summary: Basically, Nicole is mean to Marc and Nicole and Brian realize that they've acted insufficiently as his elder siblings.
Relationships: Marc Bennett & Brian Bennett, Marc Bennett & Nicole Bennett, Nicole Bennett & Brian Bennett
Comments: 2





	We Hide In the Performance Zone

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously, I was sedated when I wrote this.

"Wait, Nicole! I didn't mean to! It was an accident!"

Nicole stared disbelievingly at the erlenmeyer flask in front of her. It was filled with a deep crimson liquid, but Marc knew it was supposed to be a soft pink.

"Marc, what _happened?"_

Marc sniffed and steeled his will enough to look his sister in the eyes. "I turned the stopcock counterclockwise when it got close to the equivalence point."

Nicole glanced at the burette. _Four milliliters_ more titrant had been used than her calculations predicted. The data was unsalvageable.

"Unbelievable! I gave you one job, Marc! One _simple_ job! Shut off the burette when the acidic medium was at equilibrium!"

Marc squeezed his eyes shut once, twice, and turned to look at the materials settled over Nicole's dresser. "I have 500 milliliters of oxilic acid and at least 200 of sodium hydroxide. You can use as much of it as you need. I'll ask Brian if he has the phena–phenothae–the color indicator for neutral-basic."

"It's called phenolphthalein and that was the last of it in the house," she muttered. "The janitorial staff caught me last time I stole some from the supply labs at school. It'll be at least a weak until I can get more! Which means I can't get this paper out in time to be peer-reviewed before the civil engineering edition of ScienceMag which means that I can't put a contribution on my November applications!"

Nicole was slowly approaching Marc, jabbing a finger at his collarbone. "This is going to affect my chances. Do you have any idea the kind of people I'm competing with? This is Princeton, not some dingey community college like you'll end up at! If I don't have any major research projects on top of invention projects, I'll only be an above average applicant with a 5% margin of error which, if you need me to spell it out for you, leaves a 15% chance of getting a rejection letter. If I fall victim to that 15%, 75% of the blame is on you."

Marc swallowed and pushed tears back. "Nicole, you're really smart. They'd be stupid not to accept you, and even if they didn't, I bet you would basically still have your choice of college–"

"My first choice is MIT, idiot." The anger in Nicole's voice left a harrowing silence.

"I never should have trusted you."

Marc's lips began to twitch and quiver, despite the past five minutes of successfully keeping it together. "But I–"

"Get _out!"_

Marc inhaled sharply and nodded once before walking out and gently shutting the door behind him. He turned to face the hallway and, as calmly and professionally as he could, strode towards his room.

His dad passed him, Marc's shoulder brushing his hip. He was clearly attempting to finish the laundry last minute (he had a basket on his hip and Mom was supposed to be home in fifteen minutes _and_ he was power walking towards the stairs). To Marc's utter disdain, his dad slowed his pace upon glancing at him.

"Hey kiddo, you okay?"

Marc willed his heartbeat to steady. "Hm?"

"You look down. Everything good?"

Marc put on a nonchalant smile. "Yeah, just thinking. I hit writer's block for my opera but I don't think it'll last long."

His dad looked at him with the same mixture of bewilderment, fear, and endearment that Marc had grown so accustomed to.

Eager to move this along, Marc said, "Traffic is lighter today. You better hurry."

That was all he needed to say to get his dad racing towards the steps. Good.

With that taken care of, Marc could move on to his next endeavor: collapsing onto his bed and reacting as he had so desired to for the past few minutes.

And he did just that. He took a step and a half into his bedroom and rather hastily shut the door. Marc lumbered over to his bed, keeled over, and allowed his tears to soak into the fabric of his pillow case.

He didn't _mean_ to ruin Nicole's experiment! He didn't understand why he turned the stopcock the wrong direction. It wasn't like he had never used a burette before. Sure, he was relatively new to chemistry—only a few months of materials chemistry under his belt—but that was hardly an excuse for such poor lab technique.

Marc recognized that his underdeveloped endocrine was producing disproportionately low amounts of serotonin and norepinephrine and disproportionately high amounts of dopamine. The excess dopamine would need to be removed and the muscular reaction triggered in his diaphragm by his distress needed to work itself out. In other words, Marc needed to cry for real.

He stood and turned the door lock with a soft click. How was he going to do this? Marc pulled several tissues from a box of Kleenex and layered them over his pillow. He also made sure to grab his water bottle; he would need to rehydrate during, if not after.

Marc fell over his sheets and shuddered, a whine building in the back of his throat. The muscles around his mouth retracted and his eyes squeezed out tears. His diaphragm began to spasm, rapidly drawing and releasing air.

This was nothing but unbalanced chemicals. Marc had ahold of himself, really, but just not physically. That was it. That was all.

Half an hour later found Marc staring at the ceiling, pressing his water bottle to his face in between sips to cool the splotchy red around his eyes. His hormones seemed to be more or less balanced. Certainly enough for Marc to think, so he had to be productive.

Marc had a stirring idea of how to fix this...It might take some trial and error, but anything that took less than a week to work out would be better at the very least.

What did he have at his disposal? If he could get ahold of some DCM and phthalic anhydride...Marc dried his eyes on the backs of his hands and got to his feet. He had work to do.

Nicole was angry. She knew she was angry. She knew that Marc knew she was angry, and Marc was a non-confrontational person. So when someone knocked at her door, she was unpleasently surprised to find it was her jerk brother.

"What do you want?"

Marc's soft, tired voice floated through the door. "Do you have any saline?"

“Are you stupid? Go make some. Don't bother me again."

A beat. "Mom's cooking dinner and I don't want to intrude on her space."

"Did I ask?"

Another beat. Then, "Bye, Nicole."

Thank God.

Marc backed away from the door, heart pounding. He made note to research anxiety later and shuffled towards Brian's door. Last he checked, his older brother was running was running some tests on a combination treatment of stem cells and CRISPR. It was a small and delicate experiment, which meant that he wouldn't need the dining room space and would need an environment as calm as possible, which meant that he was most likely in his room.

Cautious not to upset Brain, Marc knocked firmly and quietly.

"Identify," Brian's distracted voice responded, muffled by the wood.

"Marc."

"Enter. Slowly!"

Marc nodded to himself and seamlessly opened the door just enough for his small body to slip into Brian's bedroom. "What do you need, Marc? I'm busy, and I thought you were working on your opera." Brian was hovered over a plastic folding table (the one the family used for cook-outs, if Marc wasn't mistaken), his hands buried into the gloved openings to a portable fume hood.

"Something came up." Marc balled his hands into fists to keep himself from wringing them, the action hidden in the long sleeves of his sweater. "Do you have any saline?"

"Depends."

Marc raised a brow. "On?"

"If you have anything that I might want."

Marc resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I can loan you my work table. I would think the outdoor dining table that we once used as a jungle gym would be a little unstable for the delicate nature of your current pursuits."

Brian perked up at this. "You've got yourself a deal. What is it that you need the saline for, anyway?"

"I accidentally produced an emulsion."

He snorted. "What sorts of chemicals are you even working with?"

"DCM. And distilled water, of course."

Brian perked up again, but it was very different from last time. It was obvious in his wide eyes, furrowed brows, and tense tendons in his neck. He looked straight at Marc, eyes churning with confusion and distress. "What on earth are you doing with methylene chloride?"

"I–"

"Do you know how volatile that stuff is? Vapor pressure of 19.3 kilopascels at STP.

"I know–"

"Were you doing this in your room? If it got into the vents–"

"Brian!" Marc interrupted. "It's remained in-vessel. Plus, I shut off the vents to my room and the door's been closed. The house is fine."

Brian shook his head and wriggled out of his gloves. "No, not fine. Our equipment, as much as we all loathe, is not state-of-the-art. There could have been a leak somewhere and you were not in a well-ventilated area." Brian approached Marc, dropped into a crouch, and took his face in his hands to examine. "And by the looks of it, you weren't wearing any respiratory protection."

Brian pressed his hand to Marc's forehead. "You're warm but it may be external. Does your skin burn?"

Marc shook his head slightly, the movement resistricted by Brian's grip. "Not burning, more...prickling."

Brian swallowed and relaxed; it suddenly occurred to Marc that he had likely been ready to bounce away at any indication of risk of secondary exposure. His older brother stood and guided him by the shoulders to his bed. Marc protested, but Brian had none of it, pushing the ten year-old onto his back with firm instructions to stay put. He rifled through his closet, bringing out a small grey kit before propping a pillow underneath the crook of Marc's left elbow. Brian pulled out a blue rubber tourniquet and wrapped it around Marc's upper arm. Marc went a little bit dizzy, though he wasn't sure if it was from potentially having DNP poisoning or if it was from the prospect of getting his blood drawn.

"Can you explain this procedure to me?" He asked. Brian glanced up at him as he tied off the rubber strip. Marc felt relieved. Of course his brother would understand; the best way to cope with nerves was to understand what was happening. And for them, it was an excellent form of distraction.

"The tourniquet allows blood to flow through arteries but prevents it from flowing through veins. This helps blood collect so that I can find a good vein to draw from."

"Why doesn't it inhibit arterial flow?" Marc asked.

"Arteries are normally deeper in the body, while veins are on the surface. If you had a serious injury, we would tie the tourniquet much tighter so that it would restrict the arteries and prevent blood loss."

Brian pressed the bad of his finger over the inside of Marc's elbow and forearm, seeming to fixate over the head of the radius.

"What are you doing now?"

"Finding a good vein."

"How can you tell?"

"Well, you need to map out the veins on the arm. It's a little bit hard to see them, but it's quite effective to feel them. A good vein will feel more ellastic. Would you like to try?"

Marc nodded, becoming more enthusiastic. His brother was effectively turning this into an exciting demonstration, presenting his own elbow in an invitation for Marc to try to find a vein.

"I don't have a tourniquet on so the veins won't be as prominent, but clenching one's fist and tactily stimulating areas of interest can induce increase blood flow." Brian made a tight fist and Marc pressed over his elbow.

"This is pretty cool," Marc mumbled.

"Told you," Brian said with a slight smile. He appreciated moments like this, when their typical curt tones and professionlism slipped away in favor of casuality and playfulness. "Alright, lay back down." He confirmed the puncture site and cleaned it with rubbing alcohol.

"We need to wait for the excess alcohol to evaporate so that it doesn't enter your skin when the needle does. While we wait, we prep the needle." Brian held it up so they could both see it, careful that any unconscious movement on Marc's part wouldn't result in an injury. "We check the needle for defects. If the metal is warped, chipped, or bent in any way, you can't use it unless it's an emergency because it will tear the skin, and it will restrict blood flow around the entrance to the needle point in within the length of the needle."

Brian checked over the needle seriously. The metal was smooth and undisturbed, so he moved on. "The lower portion of the needle is the needle sheath. We thread it into the holder, which we use to attach the needle to the tube. You need to make certain the tube is clean and empty." He flipped the tube upside-down and tapped it to dislodge any debris. "After that, we insert the tube into the holder. The alcohol should be dry by now, so we can draw blood. Pull the skin taught for three or four centimeters along the vein and make sure the elbow is slightly bent to prevent reflux of the blood. Line the needle up with the vein and press holding near the base of the needle for best control." Brian did so, heart melting just a little and the slight hitch in Marc's breath. He kept talking to keep his brother's attention.

"As soon as the tube fills, I'll take off the tourniquet and place a cottoon swab over the entry point. Then I'll pull the needle and have you press down on the cotton. We'll wrap the cotton with gauze and then I'll show you clean-up."

The two went through the motions of the procedure. Brian, eager to test the blood, quickly walked Marc through disposal of sharps and how to label the tubes. He placed a sample drop in the {{{{{}}}}} and stuck the remaining blood in the mini fridge sitting underneath the window. Having noticed a slight flush had appeared in Marc's skin, he also took the time to retrieve a soft ice-pack. He layed it over his little brother's forehead and left to take care of whatever experiment the kid had going.

Brian wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but an empty tube of paint stripper and 50 grams of vinyl gloves cut to pieces was not it. Covering his mouth and nose with the hem of his shirt, Brian turned off the several heaters before sliding on a thick, slightly larger than Marc-sized glove. He noticed a singlebottle filled with a clear and colorless liquid. Like every other exposed bottle in the room, it donned a rubber cap. But the cap appeared to have been slightly melted at some point or another, slightly warping the rubber. The window was open, too, a crisp spring breeze gently ruffling through the various papers scattered about Marc's bedroom.

Brian was hesitant to look at the papers. He knew how little he would appreciate another scientist riffling through his notes when the work was unpublished as well as not officially approved. But the work taking place was complex––more complex than Brian had thought Marc capable of––and clearly important, since the kid seemed content to overlook the rather time-consuming safety measures that typically came with handling DCM. With a sigh, Brian sifted through the papers.

It seemed that the vinyl gloves were the the source of DEHP––a thalate plasticizer––that Marc had used to produce phthalic anhydride using sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid. A pre-made store of phenol sat in the corner, two grams measured out in a tray. A written reaction made clear what Marc was pursuing.

2C6H5OH + C8H4O3 -> C20H14O4 \+ H2O, with a thermal catalyst of sulfuric acid. Marc was trying to make phenolphthalein? What...?

Shaking his head, Brian left the room and dropped his T-shirt from his face as he intently marched for Nicole's room. He knocked swiftly and was met with an angry admonition of, "Go away, Marc!"

"It's Brian," he corrected. Nicole's voice came again, softer this time.

"Oh. Okay, just one second!"

Brian braced his forearm and the door frame and rested his forehead against it, suddenly feeling very tired. Just a moment later, the door swung open and Nicole gestured for him to enter.

"Do you need something?"

Brian got right to the point. "Marc was extracting methylene chloride from paint stripper and had a faulty cap. He's currently on my bed with a fever. You wouldn't happen to know anything about this...?"

Oh, come on. It wasn't hard to figure out that Nicole had been involved. Marc had been tentative and cautious where he was normally confident and straight-forward. Like Brian was going to get mad at him. He seemed distressed when Brian implied that he hadn't been exercising proper practical caution in a lab. And he had put his opera on hold! _And_ Nicole had address Brian angrily just a few seconds ago, thinking him to be Marc.

Nicole shifted, arms folded over the front of her navy sweater. "No, I wouldn't. What was he even doing with DCM? He knows how dangerous that stuff is."

"Most of his lab safety technique was acceptable. He was using the faulty hand-me-down equipment. A warped stopper hindered his ability to safely contain vapors without his knowledge. As far as I can tell, he was producing––rather successfully––phenolphthalein from paint stripper and cleaning gloves."

His sister's expression changed in a way that was just a little too complicated for Brian to read, but it was enough.

"So you do know what I'm talking about."

Nicole's lips twisted into a mean snarl. "He begged me to let him help with my toxicology research. I stepped out for a glass of water and that was long enough for him to ruin the titration and that was the last phetholphthalein in the house."

Brian frowned. "Too much titrant?"

"He turned the stopcock the wrong way."

"Marc's used a burette plenty times before. I wouldn't have expected him to make a juvenile mistake like that."

Nicole snorted and turned back to her work, aimlessly swirling a bottle of aqueous permanganate. "That makes two of us." She clearly had been expecting Brian to leave at that point, but he was not to be distracted.

"What did you say to him, Nicole?" Though her back was turned to Brian, she stiffened noticably.

"Why do you ask?"

"He seemed particularly paranoid of my perception of his capabilities. So I'll ask again: what did you say to him?"

Nicole all but slammed the bottle onto her dresser, the various flasks and stands around her rattling.

A beat.

"I wasn't nice. I yelled."

Brian took a heavy step forwards. "What did you say to him?"

"I called him an idiot," she whispered to the wall. "That he was going to end up at a community college. Said that I made a mistake in trusting and that if my MIT app got rejected then it was his fault."

Brian squeezed his eyes shut and scrubbed his hands over his brows and eyelids.

"How hard is he taking it?" Nicole asked softly.

"Well, he looked terrible, even without the DCM poisoning. I think he must feel awful. You know how much he gets caught up on his mistakes. We turned him into a perfectionist."

"I'm sure he wouldn't want to see me..."

Brian thought the weakness to her voice revealed that, regardless of Marc's wishes to see or not to see her, Nicole did indeed want to see him. He approached her gently, getting close enough for their shoulders to brush.

"I think quite the opposite. The sooner you two resolve this, the sooner he can repair himself. I need to check on him anyways. Physically, I mean."

Nicole's head swivelled to throw Brian a rare smile. "I concur. I may be of help yet."

When Marc heard the door open, he sat up excitedly to see Brian. A smile split across his face when the head of blond hair appeared in the doorway, but Marc shrunk back just as quickly when he saw Nicole's sweater––the nice one he and Brian and Leila had bought her for Christmas. She was gonna yell at him and Marc wouldn't even be able to yell back because he really did mess up. So stupidly, too. God, what was wrong with him?

Nicole made eye contact with him and his eyes flitted to the ground. "Marc? she asked.

"Yes, Nicole?" he responded stiffly. The girl gracefully wound a circle to Brian's bedside, sitting gently near Marc.

"Brian told me what happened with the DCM. Are you okay?"

"I am comfortable. The reactions should only take a few more hours to complete. My stoich indicate a yield of approxamitely one gram of crystalized phenolphthalein. I had to use some sodium hydroxide, but there should still be plenty left for you to use, and I didn't even have to touch the oxilic acid–"

"Marc!" Nicole interrupted, her voice tense and strangled. "Marc, that's enough."

Immediately, Marc's carefully modulated tone disappeared. He folded his chin into his chest and his face tightened with the onset of tears. "Sorry," he whispered. Brian recognized it as an indication that he didn't trust himself to speak any louder, lest his voice give away.

Nicole looked helplessly up at him. For the first time in years, Brian thought that she looked like a little sister, not the intellectual and emotional equal she had so quickly grown into. He gave her a pointed look to do something. To his relief, Nicole gently wrapped an arm around Marc and pulled his head into her chest. It was a good move. Marc was by far the most tactile member of the household. Surely he would recognize the gesture as cordial. So Brian was surprised when Marc almost imperceptibly shied away from the contact.

"You don't have to," he said tightly. "I know it makes you uncomfortable."

Nicole wrapped her other arm around Marc and shook her head, resting her chin on his head. "I want to."

Marc held his breath for a moment before exhaling. He wrapped his own arms around her waist and leaned into her bosom. Brian's breath stuttered in his chest as he drank in the sight. It was so rare to see expressions of affection such as these, especially between the siblings. Especially with Marc, now that he thought of it. Brian and Nicole humored physical interactions with their parents; it was, afterall, a necessary form of communication, and it was respectful to provide their parents with an idication of such affection. And of course, they were all over Leila, the baby of the family. Nicole always brought Leila into her room to hang out. The little girl was often seen sitting on their father's him or against their mother's side. She and Brian taste-tested his gastronomy experiments together, almost always resulting in fits of laughter and prank schemes.

Marc, on the other hand, didn't seem to receive attention from much anybody. Their parents were always absorbed in keeping their derelict children in line. Marc was typically well-behaved. His cynical nature wasn't as endearing as Brian's dorky enthusiasm or Nicole's precise pursuits or Leila's sweet, underdeveloped, philisophical jabber. Instances where Marc was a matter of significance tended to be like the current situation, with Marc at the center of an apparent screw-up. Similar to a few weeks ago, when their father stepped away from Brian and Nicole for five minutes to stop Marc's lesson to Leila about anarchy from destroying the living room. Oddly enough, Marc most often seemed to spend time with Leila, despite the antipole of his brash personality with Leila's charming one. He didn't look so brash now, curled into Nicole with his eyes tightly shut. He didn't look so brash a few weeks ago, either, when he had declared Leila his best friend and attempted to give her a hug, only for the younger girl to push him off with a decidedly appalled expression painting her face.

Brian thought of the way Marc's eyes had lit up just moments before, when he had walked into the room. It was unlike anything he had ever seen from his little brother. Brian thought of Marc asking Nicole to help, eager (desperate) to do something with his elder sister. Only for a slight mistake (one that was quiet reasonable when considering his age, really––and when had they forgotten that Marc was still a little kid?) to put the entire experience up in flames.

Nicole met Brian's eyes again and he knew that she was having a similar line of thought.

"I'm not mad anymore," Nicole said quietly. "I shouldn't have been in the first place. It was an accident."

"Accidents have consequences," Marc mumbled. "What if you don't get into Princeton?"

Nicole held him tighter. "Then I go to a different, just-as-amazing school. And it isn't your fault."

"But it would have been because of me."

"Just because you were the cause doesn't put you at fault. Do you understand?"

"I...No–!" Marc's voice cracked and he quickly cut himself off, burrowing closer to Nicole.

"Oh, _mon chérie_. It was an accident. There was no malicious intent and you weren't being careless. You are the most intentful person in this house. God knows I'd made thrice the mistakes as you have when I was your age. We need mistakes. It's the only way to learn."

"Y-You and Brian are-are always talking about preven-enting mistakes." His shaking body made tremulous his words.

"I think that's a mistake on our part, kiddo," Brian cut in, taking a seat next to Nicole on his bed. "Nicole and I...Well, we aren't very predisposed to showing deficiency. You're aware of the concept learning zone and performance zone?"

Marc, who had drawn away from Nicole to look at Brian, nodded his head.

"Nicole and I tend only to expose our performance activities to critical parties, but we spend a great portion of our time in the learning zone. We make just as many, if not more, mistakes than you do, but you would never know it."

**Author's Note:**

> Love you guys.


End file.
